1984 400i Chassis 50233 5 Speed On Ebay

Thanks, Sam. That car is less than 10 minutes away from me at Vantage Motors in Stamford, CT. Vantage is a good shop that services my car plus Chuck Queener's 400i and they do excellent work on lots of older Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Aston Martins, Jaguars, Rolls Royce and other high end cars.

A "Buy it Now" price of $22,000 certainly leaves a lot of room to spend money to fix the usual problems to bring this up to a decent 5 speed as long as there are no big problems in the engine, drivetrain or body.

I'll ask Marjan (father) or Mike (son) what was involved in the recent servicing and what additional work they might see needing to be done soon or down the road on this car.

I'll see if I can swing by later today or soon to check this one out a bit more.

 

I recognized the location of the photos immediately. They must be brokering it for the seller, who I believe is from New Jersey.

 

Nice, and what about the other 400 in background ? Seems to be light blue..

 

Which car is Chuck Queener's 400i ?

 

That is Chuck's, serial number 43665, a 5 speed. His car is in for some minor body work on the right front where a teen-aged girl backed into it while it was parked at a recent Caffeine and Carburetors event.

 

well where are all the people clamoring for 5 speeds?

Buy this for low $20Ks and invest a little bit and for somewhere in the $30s you have a triple black fully sorted FIVE SPEED.

If i didn't already have two I'd snap this one up now before values start to rise. (Copyright Brettski)

 

If I recall, Chuck Queener's is grey (saw it at Francois Sicard's shop a while ago). Also, in the second picture, there is a 3rd 400 (black, I think).

Regards,

Art S.

 

You ve got hunter's eyes ! I bet for a 412..don't know why.
Here are a few pictures of the grey #43665
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Okay, 400i Fans, here's the story:

I stopped by Vantage and spoke with both Marjan and Mike about the car for sale. It is from southern NJ and it has been in long term ownership with two friends of Marjan's. Except for a recent oil change and tune-up at Vantage, the car has been serviced in southern NJ because of the distance from CT. Marjan says that it needs some little things done but most importantly it needs new front bushings.

The car looks good cosmetically inside and out but has some shrinkage of the rear window shelf leather (see picture below). Leather on seats seems good, no rips or splits that I could see. The car has dual a/c but I couldn't really tell if it blows cold given the low outside temperature. Also, there are some black rubber bumper strips along each side of the car to prevent parking lot dings in the doors. They tend to blend in with the black paint in most light and angles but still look a bit odd to me.

They let me take it out for a drive and these are my impressions (BTW I have no financial interest in this car and also I am not a mechanic or an expert on these cars, I just have owned one for 14 years. Also, I had a limited amount of time between conference calls to look at the car so I did not get a chance to really go over the car or to look under the car or under the hood).

The car started right up from stone cold. Oil pressure came up to the low side of the 6 mark and stayed there. All the gauges work, including the clock.

I drove the car over some local roads in order to let it warm up properly. Ambient temperature today was 45 degrees F and it took a bit longer than my car for the temps to come up to normal. Water temp right at the 90 degrees C and the oil temp around 75-80 degrees C, which is where my car operates at this time of year.

The engine revs freely but is loud to me because I think that there is an exhaust leak up front somewhere. The exhaust is stainless and it is somewhat higher pitched in tone and "rortiness" (if that is a word) than my regular exhaust with a straight pipe (no cat), Ansa muffler and resonator setup.

The clutch works fine but is a bit sharper than mine. The gearbox is pretty stiff when it is cold and, although it does not grind like some cold boxes trying to get into second gear, you have to change a bit slow and deliberate at first or else the gear lever seems to bang a bit as you move it out of first gear. This improved noticeably once the car warmed up but it is not quite as smooth as my car in this regard. The transmission is quiet in all gears.

The engine revs freely, no smoke. Once the car was warmed up I took it up onto the Merritt Parkway and up to speed in the 80 (units unspecified ) area. The car tracks straight and smooth, brakes are fine. The steering is a bit vague on center (tie rods?) and you can move the wheel plus or minus an inch or so before you start to move over a lane but otherwise the car steers and goes fine. The TRX tires have good tread but feel a bit hard, no doubt partially because of the cold weather.

Once back at the shop, I noticed that the solenoids for the hood, trunk and gas filler releases don't work. Also, the central locking from the driver's door doesn't work. All of these are likely the result of the car sitting around for a while. Lastly, the idle revs are on the high side at 1,800 rpm and I told Marjan about that.

Overall my impression is that this is a good car that needs numerous minor things to get to the way we would like to see them but nothing, other than the front bushings, major that I could tell. Even the bushings didn't feel that bad to me, no bangs or judder on bumps.

In short, this car is well worth checking out further for anyone looking for a 5 speed at a reasonable price. The buy it now price is $22k, Vantage is not taking a commission on the car because it belongs to a friend of the owner and the seller wants to sell. I would trust Marjan or Mike to tell you everything that they know about the car. Their phone number is 203 327-1747 and the website is at www.vantagemotorsports.com Edit: just noticed that the website is being revamped and there is nothing currently up there to look at. It's too bad because their old site had some good information about Marjan's long experience, including a long stint at Chinetti Motors, back in the day.

Here are some pictures of the car for sale. Also a picture of Chuck's car (his car in back, mine in front), which is a bluish gray and that is why it looks sort of blue in the background of the eBay photo. By the way, the other black 400i is a 1984 series 2, s/n 52661 black/tan and a brown dash, automatic, dual a/c and with 42,600 miles. It is a customer car being held at Vantage because the owner is going through a divorce and couldn't pay the service bill. It's a shame because it's been there a while but the car is in sort of a limbo right now.

The last photo is of some of the cars inside the shop.
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John-

Awesome public service you're doing here- Looks like they've hit the price right on the head- Given the relatively minor work that we already know needs doing. As we 400 5 speed owners know- they're really special cars.

 

Ebay auction is over. Someone bought it for the buy it now price. Looks like someone got a great deal.

 

Indeed! Let's hope they check in here and give us the full report.

 

Maybe that someone saw John's post & jumped on it.

I'd say! Even @ 1000 rpm it sounds a little on the high side (though it is w/in OM's recommended limits), I think it purrs better @ 800 rpm...to my deaf ears anyway.

When you say no cats, do you mean that you have 2 mufflers in the middle section?
Or is the middle section just straight pipes to the rear section (muffler/resonator)?

It's nice to see so many 400i's in one service lot.

 

That shifter handle doesn't look right to me.

 

Good thing. I was going to jump it.

I'm trying to buy a different car this week though and two in a week would be too much for the wife.

 

It looks sold as of right now. Somebody is getting a great car. Hopefully we will hear from them here.

-sc

 

When I had Amerispec install cats on the car so that I could pass the CT emissions inspection I also had them make up two "test pipes" that would allow me to take out the cats and replace them with the test pipes. Now that the 400i is no longer subject to emissions testing I just leave the test pipes in place ahead of the single muffler on each side going out to the rear resonator.

Yes, Vantage Motors seems to have developed a nice 400i service clientele in southwestern Connecticut. They always seem to have two or three Ferraris, Daytonas, Dinos, 330 GTC and others in the shop when I stop by, not to mention the 400is. While we are very fortunate to have other older Ferrari specialists in the region 45 minutes away (e.g. Bill Pollard), Vantage also has excellent old Ferrari credentials since Marjan worked at Chinetti Motors years ago and he is passing his knowledge down to his son Mike. They both are top notch mechanics with full machine shop, upholstery and body shop capabilities.

Also, this may be a newsflash but I understand that Chuck's 5 speed 400i has been sold and will soon be on its way to Canada. I wonder if the buyer is on FChat?

 

That's 'huge' being that Luigi brought Enzo his 1st win in Le Mans & in turn, Enzo sent him to NY to open the 1st & premere dealership in N. America. You guys are lucky up there.

Brett maybe?

 

Stopped by Vantage to chat with Mike this afternoon and the black 5 speed is indeed gone. The buyer is from Brooklyn and it will be joining a 308 and a Fiat 124 Spyder.

I hope that the buyer will check in hear and let us know how he likes his new V12. For $22K I think that he got a very good deal.

 

is it me or are these manuals getting snapped up quickly. they're not hanging around for years on end like alot of cars. Admittedly they're reasoonable prices but they seem to be flying out the dealer doors. what do others think. Maybe we have a floor now for a running car half decent condition of minimum $17k , £11k, 14k euro, with manuals $22k, £15k 18k euros?
a recent UK 400 manual was sold by a dealer very quickly, bought at auction for £11k before Christmas and advertised for £17k and i think already sold as not listed anymore

 

It may well be, Rob. There are approximately 50 manual transmission 400i cars in the U.S. and these, plus the automatic versions have to be approaching, if not at, the point of "fully depreciated".

Good cars are now selling for less than the low prices of the predecessor 2+2s, such as the 250 GTE and the 330 GT 2+2, both of which routinely now sell for six figures here in the States. Now those cars needed to be 35 or more years old before the prices started going up so maybe there is some more time for people to find the dwindling number of well maintained 400is out there and pick up a bonafide Ferrari bargain (using the term relatively, of course!).